The present invention relates generally to playing media via a television and more specifically to playing media obtained via the Internet on a television.
Analog and/or digital signals can be used to play media via a television. Media information used to generate the analog and digital signals can be obtained via any of a variety of sources. Media can be obtained from a broadcast source such as terrestrial broadcast television, cable television, and satellite television. Media can also be obtained from a fixed media such as digital versatile disks (DVDs), on demand via a local network, such as media obtained from a home media server, via a closed network, such as a cable or satellite network, or via the Internet.
A problem commonly encountered when attempting to display media obtained from the Internet is that the media is difficult to access via a typical television remote control. A number of services offer the ability to view media, which has been syndicated by the service, on a television. However, these services typically do not enable a user to access media via the Internet that has not been syndicated. Other systems circumvent the issues associated with viewing media via the Internet by downloading the media to a local storage device and enabling a user to access the locally stored media files using a locally generated user interface.
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a technology that is used by many media distribution sites to provide media to subscribers. An RSS subscription is a way for a user to “subscribe” to a site on the Internet that frequently updates content. The RSS file contains a summary of content and an RSS reader fetches RSS files from predefined locations on a periodic basis and provides the subscriber with information concerning “new” content. RSS feeds, however, usually only summarize the content of a single web site and do not give the user freedom to “browse” from page to page. For example, a subscriber to an RSS feed can see new music videos added to a site by a favorite band. However, the subscriber cannot view all of the music videos on the site attributed to the band.
A CSS can be used to describe the visual layout of information in a structured document. The separation of content from presentation enables a CSS to define the presentation of the content in various contexts. For example, different displays can be used for computers and televisions. CSSs are currently supported by a large number of websites, however, very few of these sites utilize CSSs to format information for display on alternate display devices.